


Eight : Paula Swanson, The Depth Of Me : The Depth Of Me / I Am So Much More Than You Know

by spilled_ink



Series: The First and The Last [8]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Gen, I Don't Even Know, Implied Relationships, Implied Slash, M/M, Minor Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, No Dialogue, No Smut, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-16 05:23:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2257404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spilled_ink/pseuds/spilled_ink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve draws Tony and discovers things. Things help make Tony feel better when he needs it the most. Open ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eight : Paula Swanson, The Depth Of Me : The Depth Of Me / I Am So Much More Than You Know

**Author's Note:**

> You can consider this pre-Stony if you'd like, or building up to Stony or whatever, but there is no actual relationship yet, it's only implied that maybe after this there could be one if you want it to.

Steve draws Tony in sharp lines and glittering eyes and the slight but well defined planes of his body, the muscles that shift and morph, barely noticeable under his clothes as he strides around Stark Tower attending to one thing, then another. When Steve sketches, he sketches with the same energy that Tony exudes, an energy that seems to electrify the atmosphere and hides his nervousness, his hesitance, behind bravado and cockiness and confidence that is all but an act, a facade he's built up to keep himself safe and away from other people.

Often, Steve will draw Tony holding a glass in his hand, half full or half empty depending on the day, but the liquid is coloured water in Steve's eyes, not the liquid luck, not the liquid forgetting potion that Tony swigs from each day in an effort to try and push back his past. It's just a ritual for him now, just a ritual to push back perceived failures, push back everything he's ever felt or would want to feel and drink till he goes numb, drink till there's nothing but sleepy static in his head only to do it all over again.  
When he gets time off, when he doesn't have a million and one other things to do, Steve finds himself more and more on the 41st floor, lurking within the confines of Tony's lab drawing his endearingly annoying bots or even Tony himself and talking to Jarvis, the AI who is more Tony that Tony knows or wants to admit to. Steve likes the quiet of the lab, it helps him think, helps him understand how Tony feels when he's there and after a while, he learns to drown out the obnoxious rock music that plays 24/7, music that Tony uses to drown out people he doesn't want to listen to.

Steve realizes that with time, his drawings of Tony have gone from hard, sharp lines that are pressed darkly into the page, sharp contrast of black and white to softer strokes that come naturally with the flick of wrist, still bold, but with rounded edges that seem to make the figure part of the page. Perhaps, Seve thinks, perhaps that's what Tony want, to just blend in, not stand out despite all his flash and wealth. Steve finds that he softens the slope of Tony's shoulders, blending in the hunch of his body to the background as he sits tinkering with another invention in the middle of the night trying to stay awake to keep the nightmares at bay, forcing down coffee after coffee in a effort not to drift off into terror.

Steve finds himself understanding Tony through his art, through the change of biro pen to black pencils into flaking charcoal; the same hardness that Tony exudes on first meeting to the the gentleness in how he treats the people he is close to,and the way in which he understands other people more than they know, without letting on that he does. Steve begins to draw then, with the same flakiness that Tony embodies under his mask, and with a gentle hand in order to preserve the true essence of his subject.

Sometimes he thinks he has successfully captured the the emotion in Tony's eyes and on those days he sees his drawing in his dreams but in technicolour and with a life of their own. Which is why, when he finds Tony breaking down with an arm round Dummy's central joint, a bottle of scotch smashed at his feet, several more lined up beside him, Steve just sighs and takes a seat ignoring the way a sob rips from Tony's throat, finally free after months of pretending everything was allright.

The genius looks horrified by his slip up for a second before it all comes crashing down and then he's yelling something about people not knowing who he really is, who he, how he is in reality so much more than anyone knows and he finds himself standing up, weaving on his feet, stumbling and clutching at Steve's shoulder and demanding something, anything, please because he doesn't even know anymore he just wants to stop make it stop make it stop make it-

A piece of paper is thrust at him, hastily ripped out of the book that Steve always carries with him and Tony...

Tony...

Tony...

He stops.

He stops having come face to face with himself, a portrait done by Steve when Tony was most at ease, talking and laughing with Dummy and Buterfingers and Jarvis, a picture that was drawn without him knowing but captures him more perfectly that anyone else ever has before.

A silence descends on them, thick and dense and bearing down on their shoulders till Steve opens his book, takes the page out of Tony's hand and tucks it back into the correct place. Without a word he sets the book down, offers a small smile, and leaves.

Tony spends the rest of the night flicking from page to page, noting the way Steve had broken down all his barriers and unraveled him through art alone, pausing when he notices anything extra special like the way his drawing strokes changed over time as he got to know Tony better and Tony, for the first time in his life, feels at ease knowing that there is someone that knows the depth of him, for all that he really is.

Steve.

**Author's Note:**

> so how was that? I felt weird writing it so I don't really know... hehe. Hope it was okay though :) And yes, I spell coloured with an 'u', don't judge me :P


End file.
